A GLOOMING PEACE THIS MORNING

A relationship between two teenagers causes controversy in a small Southern town in this debut novel.

Mendenhall’s work, set in the bucolic fictional town of Andalusia, is a first-person coming-of-age tale told by a character named Cephas. Its tale of “illicit love and unfortunate loss” takes place in the 1970s, as Cephas looks back on his journey toward maturity during his boyhood with good buddies Michael Warren, whose father shared a law office with Cephas’; impulsive Lump; and introverted Brett Cox. The novel’s spirited, condensed plot features townspeople who feel betrayed by two of their own, and believably vivid courtroom scenes highlight an era in which ideas of social morality were upheld with strict deliverance. New families occasionally and unceremoniously arrive in town, but some don’t fare too well and depart mysteriously—as in the case of the Finkelmans,whose patriarch was accused of standing by his window, “playing with himself where everyone can see.” Meanwhile, the boys’ afternoons of innocent mischief are clouded by a complex and forbidden relationship between Brett’s 18-year-old brother Tommy (who “would never reason beyond the capacity of a child”) and Michael’s 13-year-old sister Sarah, who’s seen as the “beating heart” of the town of Andalusia. The truth emerges after the boys catch the pair together and Sarah subsequently confesses everything to Cephas. In the eyes of the law, Tommy’s actions constitute statutory rape and, in the fiery aftermath of a courtroom’s shocking verdict, the town’s reputation as a “bastion of conformity and consistency” is tested.

Mendenhall is a prolific writer of academic criticism and nonfiction,including Shouting Softly: Lines on Law, Literature, and Culture(2021) and in this first foray into literature, he shines. The title is drawn from a line in Romeo and Julietand one can easily draw comparisons to the plot of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird(1960). The author demonstrates a remarkable talent for relating an atmosphere of class and racial division; the region, bordered by “haunted forests” and Native American burial mounds, comes alive with elaborate and rich history; there’s a majestic Georgian revival oak-paneled courthouse, a tall, broken town clock which “stared down like a panoptic cyclops,” and a legend of “an old blind man, the oracle in overalls, [who] wandered Magnolia County in the 1920s and prophesied that Andalusia would perish if a local virgin murdered her one true love.” The novel’s short length doesn’t affect the potency of its pacing and characterization. Mendenhall depicts the older Cephas as a capable narrator who’s eager to tell his vibrant tale; the protagonist displays seasoned maturity as well as a modest ability to take a look backward at lessons learned. Mendenhall believably portrays the group of boyhood friends, as well as the adults who struggle to mold them into an image of purity and benevolence. Overall, this is a dynamic debut that ably depicts a community of God-fearing personalities struggling to comprehend their emotions, hopes, dreams, and fears.

A briskly paced story of youth in a small, troubled town.